Extract of sample Business opportunities in the leisure goods and activities industry

Besides, it is also necessary to analyze the revenue stream of a target company over a few years to determine the long-term prospects of the firm and its internal stability. Common examples of leisure-based goods or companies include Water Parks, Disneyland, Holiday Tour operators like Thomas Cook etc (Mark, 2010). The primary task of a leisure based company is to ensure that all requirements of a person on a vacation are adequately provided for within the latter’s budget and schedule. The following sections describe the analytical approach used to evaluate prospective business segments, within the leisure industry, that are useful from an investment perspective for AGPO Limited. The analysis is based on latest figures on consumer spending between 2002 and 2007 in various leisure activities such as holidays, restaurants, sports, gambling and entertainment. Trends in consumer spending on leisure activities According to Mathies (2009), consumers are wealthier today, with higher disposable incomes, than they were 20 years ago. In fact, per-capita real income has increased by over 3 times since the 1970s while the standard of living has risen by over two-thirds during this period, especially across the developed world. Victoria (2008) says that over 45% of spending is currently categorized as ‘discretionary’ among consumers in the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). With rising incomes, families now have broader flexibility in their household spending and divert as much as 20% of their incomes on leisure activities. This estimate is similar to the proportion spent by an average American household on food and beverages. Canwell (2009) conducted an extensive survey among households in the US and determined that over 80% of consumers spent regularly on leisure based goods and services. He further attributes such findings to the explosive growth witnessed by the leisure industry over the recent decade. White (2009) has analyzed the growth rate of leisure based companies in North America and Europe and estimated an average of 6% between 2001 and 2010, despite the dip between 2008 and 2009 due to the global financial crisis (Hayward, 2010). Hayward (2010) cites many reasons for the growth in consumer spending on leisure activities. Firstly, the population in most developed countries is ageing leading to more pensioners who seek out prolonged vacations and travel opportunities. Non-traditional households combined with late marriages are also other contributing factors to this trend. Charlesworth (2011) also notes that longer working hours are encouraging people to seek better leisure opportunities whereby people are willing to spend more for better products and services. Analysis of the leisure industry Based on the statistics provided on consumer spending, the cumulative spending across individual leisure segment was compiled as shown below: Fig 1: Consumer spending trends across leisure industry segments The above trend lines indicate that consumers have been spending the most on Food/Drink, Family Outings/Holidays and Household Activities. These findings fall in line with the observations of several previous studies such as those by Mark (2010)
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Summary

Business opportunities in the leisure goods and activities industry Introduction The leisure good and activities industry is a multi-faceted industrial sector that offers people various avenues to explore, experience and enjoy their free time. The leisure industry offers a diverse set of options for individuals wishing to spend their vacations through hotels, tours, amusement parks, restaurants and sports facilities…

Leisure goods and activities include: sporting arenas, amusement parks, theatres, hotels, tourism industry, venues for musical groups or lectures and gaming place. One can also add spas, gyms or the places where the sporting activities can be held such as golf clubs or boating to the industry.

It is for this reason that expenditure in the industry is highest where consumers are able to devote time and money to leisure activities and goods. Business Link (n.d.) also indicates that the key drivers for this sector include: inexpensive air travel; the aspirations for higher lifestyle and increasing disposable incomes Increasing opportunities in countries experiencing increases in disposable incomes but where the sector is still in the developmental stages, for example Eastern Europe.

The modes and preferences have evolved drastically over centuries and civilizations. Entertainment may be in active form such as sports, adventure, traveling, nature study, arts and music or in passive form such as television, internet and other mass media tools.

Leisure differs from one person to another. What one person may consider a relaxing activity maybe work to another. This makes it difficult to combine activities under the umbrella of leisure. For example, playing tennis on a Sunday afternoon maybe leisure to someone and work to a tennis professional who is training hard before a match.

The increase of these industries benefited the labor force especially of the short term employees.
Leisure industry are composed of companies that operate to facilitate services for the good of the customers who would want to relax and enjoy their leisure times in lieu of their vacation holidays.

The author states that the Blacks Leisure Group can vie for competitive advantage by adopting one of the four generic or the classical strategies, as per its business needs, but in order to develop a sustaining competitive advantage, which is the main goal of the company, it will need much more than a generic strategy.

It has already integrated in its product range women's sportswear and sports fashion that culminated with the launching of the Pure Women store concept. It has also incorporated Millets chain of family-oriented sporting goods stores and the higher-end Air and youth-oriented Free Spirit retail chains.

Did your parents have fun together? Did your parents entertain at home? Who did they invite? (2) Did your family vacation? Where did you go? (3) What were your very active forms of play? Where did you play? Did you play alone?
The choice of recreational activities and play

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